I kind of disagree with your CPU comparison. I much rather take a fast dualcore with good memory bandwidth compared to shitty quadcore A9 with lousy memory bandwidth.

Ipad4 and Google Nexus 10 should be quite a bit better in general usage compared to Cortex A9 quadcore-tablets and at least comparable to Snapdragon S4 quadcores, as a lot of applications wont benefit from more threads.Reply

You're right that a fast dual-core with good memory bandwidth will probably kill a shitty quad-core. But there are benefits of using a quad-core processor for *some* multithreaded applications. Is it more important than memory bandwidth. No!

I'm trying to list EVERY potential strength and weakness I can find for each. Some people have complained about the Physical Home Button being a benefit, but there are advantages of that as well.

I don't think counting cores is really worthwhile as it doesn't take into account important things like IPC, clockspeed, and software optimizations. It's probably a better idea to just look at absolute performance when comparing disparate platforms like the ones you've listed.

If the quad-core is superior, that superiority should show up in a benchmark or in real world application analysis. If it doesn't prove it's worth, then it's not an advantage and shouldn't even be mentioned.Reply

That was a truly idiotic article.You obviously haven't read the Anandtech performance reviews showing the iPhone 5 and iPad 4 just wiping the floor with the Nexus 10 inferior processor and GPU. Not even close. Actually you probably have read it and want to pretend like it doesn't exist.You don't understand the relationship between resolution, pixels and PPI. There is nothing noticeably sharper about the nexus 10 screen but the color calibration and gamut is noticeably inferior to the iPad 3 and 4.The iPad does not need as much application memory as the Nexus 10 because iOS is a highly optimized OS. People are seeing lag on Nexus 10's.The Nexus 10 is sold at cost. So pathetic. Google is desperate to fine someone, anyone who will buy an Android tablet.Android tablet apps are a joke. No comparison at all with iOS.It does not have twice the storage. You can buy an iPad in 16, 32 or 64 bit versions.iPad has LTE. Nexus 10 may some day work on AT&T and T-Mobiles deprecated HPSA networks, But they don't even work on them for now.It does not have better wi-fi than the iPad 4. Thats just a lie.Much easier to repair? Dumb in so many ways.It plays Flash? Really? Not out of the box and the kludge works poorly. Even Adobe has disowned Flash on Android.It does not have a better rear facing camera.Your other points are incredibly stupid but i guess you needed to come up with 35 things...Reply

Hmmmmm. Google played their cards really well. If you want microSD and LTE and delayed updates at a high price, get the Optimus G. If you want fast updates at cheap price without LTE and large storage, get the Nexus 4. Want a balance of all, get the S3.

Nexus 10, most unexpectedly is in it's own league. The only nitpick i can think of is less storage. Considering the multi-user feature a model with microSD expansion is a necessity.Reply

I agree the lack of a memory slot for both the iPad and Nexus is a big deal. That's why smart users will purchase the 32GB model.

I talked to someone with connections inside Google and found out the reason Google is doing this is because they think the Cloud is where data should be stored. Of course that doesn't work out well when you're away from Wi-Fi.

It's not a big deal because most people will never use one.Also Google knows that using an SD card with android apps and data is a mess. Thats why they discourage them and never put them on Nexus devices.16GB is enough for most people who use cloud services and don't load up their tablets with apps or data they don't use.Reply

Google had nothing to do with that. Its how the Android handset market is shaking out. Google just does what the carriers allow them to. In the case of the Nexus 4 the carriers did not allow Google to have LTE. Google rolled over for the carriers like they always. Android users are the product not the customer so Google doesn't care. Just view or ads and let us track your movements and sell the information.Reply

You also are very quick calling something a strength or weakness when it could be argued either way. Calling a physical home button a strength and the lack of one a weakness is very much opinion. Also the new "Lightning connector" is viewed by many as a weakness as it now makes all old devices obsolete and many will not work with this new connector even with an adapter.Reply

Personally, I think the value is still there with the device being the vanguard of the hardware and software it packs inside. I'm just not sure that horsepower and smooth UI refinement will resonate enough with the user who can't get webpages to load quickly or who knows they'd be better served downloading an app over wi-fi rather than out on the road.

At that price point however, they may just sell a bundle of these regardless. Quite the coin toss.Reply

I mean, really? 21 mbps plenty fast to browse on the phone for all practical purposes. I don't like to make statements like X amount of resource is enough for this application, but 21 mbps is FAST!

I don't know of many web pages that would show significant difference in user experience, it'll take you 1 second or so to download a 3MB page and i don't know too many pages which are that big. Nevermind the fact that the phone itself will take longer to render the page than HSPA+ will take to download it.

1080p videos can be streamed effortlessly on HSPA+

The only practical area where LTE makes sense is if you download gigabytes of data on your phone regularly (not many do that because mobile data costs a bomb) or you're using it for tethering purposes with multiple devices (which runs into the same wall).Reply

If the Nexus 4 costs as much as an iPhone and doesn't have LTE, then it's an issue. But as you see with the LG Optimus G, you can get the phone with LTE but have to pay a lot more for it.

The lack of microSD is an issue for many people but again, the price is so low it's hard to complain about such a minor issue, especially because Google offers versatile cloud alternatives.

Sure, having both LTE and microSD is great, but you can get it, just buy the LG Optimus G but don't expect to get it for a Nexus price.I don't see the problem people have?

The pixel count was an amazing thing Apple risked, but I think they've done it wrong. They released the 'retina' tablet (iPad 3) too early and the result was an in my opinion not Apple like perfect tablet: huge battery required, more weight, thicker, huge SoC required which generates lot of heat and is probably very expensive for Apple.The result: Apple released the iPad 4, which fixed some of those issues (mainly the SoC) just a few months later and they don't even promote the iPad 3 any longer, but do the iPad 2.

And again, the price makes it a 'no brainer'. You get more or at least the same for less money.Reply

The Nexus4 isn't cheaper than the iPhone. At an equal 16gigs the iPhone is $150 cheaper.

I'm sure there are some buyers who really value no contract, but to me it's a bug not a feature. Contracts subsidize the phone while giving me the exact voice and data plan I'd be buying anyways. With a Nexus4, even ignoring the non-trivial lack of LTE, you pay $150 more up from, and then the only way to capture any benefit from no contract is to upgrade sooner, to say a hypothetical Nexus4 2.0 in a year for another $350. You've therefore spent $700 on hardware, the same on data and voice, and forgone LTE, all for getting an upgrade a year early. I'm an iPhone user, but I'd gladly take a Galaxy S3 or Nokia 920 anyway over the Nexus4 plan. Reply

You should probably consider that it is a different people (generally mad fanboys though) who make those comments (like the ppi ones).

Here, in india (and a big load of the world's countries) LTE isn't even on the roadmap yet, so mainly it's just the US citizens are concerned with it. Besides, as i said, LTE as of today, is a bit of an overkill for phones, just like 450ppi 1080p displays. So, although i would definitely like to have those, they will not be deciding factors for me.

MicroSD is a very subjective matter. I'm sure that it sways many customers away. But as for me, I'm easily content with 16GB (or even 8GB) storage because i don't watch videos on my phone. Just a couple hundred songs + apps, so i don't need removable storage for that.Reply

Well, the thing is that the same people that were complaining about LTE and microSD on the iPad are the once making big deal about it on the Nexus devices. Except, the Apple fanboys joint them.We know why both sides stick with no sd expansion - Apple sells you more flash in $100 increments and Google wants to sell you cloud storage.I'm having big beef with people complaining about LTE. First, as explained in the article it is shit for people who travel. It is contrary to the openness of the Android microsystem; and second, I feel that the complains about HSPA+ speed comes from 13 year-old kids playing top trumps. I get 36mbps to my house and running OC quad-core desktop on 27" monitor I never feel like "gosh this internet is slow". So I don't see how 60% of the bandwidth on a 160+% smaller screen size with several fold slower computing power is a limiting factor. So all you people that swear by LTE, your stick is bigger than mine, I just use mine more often and no one complains. :)As far as screen resolution on these small devices, let's say I care about my eye. (wing at the guys with the big shticks)Reply

Google does not care about selling cloud storage, They know SD cards suck on Android and want them to go away. Also since they sell these devices at cost they keep the memory sizes as minimal as possible. Pretty sad state of affairs all the way around but its google and their low quality software and hardware as usual.Reply

Also since they sell these devices at cost they keep the memory sizes as minimal as possible.

What sense does that make? +8GB of Flash memory costs with USB controller (as a USB Stick) $10. I'm sure built in in large quantities the costs is even less.

If selling at cost is the point it would be an easy route to offer devices with 32Gb or even 64GB of memory for small increments of price (+$40, +$100 respectively). And let the market decide what size device they want to pay for.

For Google that should be an especially attractive (feasible) model, as it does not have to deal with the logistics of stocking the different sizes in thousands of stores.Reply

So now the Android kids think;No LTE is just fine.A glass back is just fine.No SD card is just fine8 GB of memory is just fine.

What level of cognitive dissonance do these people require to come up with this. Oh and how does Google hit these magical price points? They make no money from these devices. Thats how desperate they are to get people to buy an Android tablet. No profit.But don't worry, it will be typical Samsung shoddy construction and typical zero support for Nexus devices from Google or anyone else.Reply

There is no such thing as good prices, only profitable prices.Apple has picked VERY profitable prices.

You see how it goes when we're allowed to make arbitrary absolute statements...

(You can argue that a customer should care only about the price they see, not about profitability for the company. True if you're only in it for the short term. But if you're planning to be part of a long-term ecosystem, profitability matters.Palm showed that earlier, RIM is showing that right now, and it's quite possible Nokia will be providing a followup lesson in a year or so.)Reply

Doesn't bother me at all to have AT&T subsidize the cost of my phone down to lower than the Nexus 4, with more storage space and LTE to boot! I'm not paying for that anyway, so why should it bother me?

I'm at $50 with a family plan and company discount so buying unlocked to use a crappier carrier doesn't even save money in my particular case.Reply

A couple things:First: there's a big difference between 3G and HPSA+. HPSA+ is essentially as fast as what goes for "4G" in most of the US. The downside to HPSA+ has more to do with coverage than speed, IMO - it's not as widely available as Verizon's LTE.

Second, and more relevant to the discussion: there were also quite a few people who didn't care that the iPad/iPhone were on 3G instead of 4G (based on sales). So, it's not much of a stretch to believe that some people still don't care about 3G vs. 4G. That's more likely than a conspiracy... Reply

No LTE. Not a deal breaker for me. Verizon sucks. They have their hands all over the current Google Nexus, which causes huge delays for Google Android releases. The only reason to have the Nexus on Verizon is because you can unlock the bootloader, root it, and ROM it.

Also, Verizon's LTE where I live is crap. I get ~6mbit up/down while all other LTE carries get double that. HSPA+ 42 is as fast as any LTE carrier throttles their network currently. I am jumping ship to Tmobile. They have better plans than what Verizon changed to. Reply

Nice writeup, and thanks for not dwelling on the storage issues of the Nexus 4 (much as they aggravate me as well). Very excited that the WQXGA screen is actually happening.

Just wanted to say, I had the weirdest feeling when I read "the enormous memory bandwidth" referring to Exynos 5250. I mean, DDR3-800 may be a lot more than mobile devices are used to, but it's still feels weird to think of it as enormous in a world with 6GHz GDDR5.Reply

You're definitely right, compared to the PC space and to other RAM solutions we're really at about 5 years ago. But, the difference is the packaging and the voltages. The 2GB 800MHz DDR3 of the past sat on long double sided DIMM's and operated at 1.5V, today's similar DDR3L fit perched atop the rather small SoC and operate at a fraction of those voltages.

A long time ago, the CEO of Sega, at the Dreamcast swan song announcement, told us that in a decade we would carry around hardware with that kind of power in the palm of our hands. He was wrong. This is more powerful. Cheers.Reply

I will probably pick a Nexus 4 up as soon at hits the market here in India. The pricing just kills S3/One X/iPhone/Optimus G and every other top tier phone. Add to that the prmoside of speedy updates that the Nexus tag brings. As long as one is in a non LTE region, this phone is a real no brainer.

I see how google/samsung might be making virtually no money out of the 16GB Nexus 10, i still think they should have priced the 32GB version at $449. NAND is cheap and they really shouldn't follow Apple's example in this case.Reply

The Nexus 10 looks amazing, but I really don't like the storage limitation. I understand that Google wants to imitate Apple on this, but since other Android tablets will have expanded storage, they need to come up with a way to handle it gracefully for the sake of the platform.Reply

Android tablets came after iFad. It's pretty obvious they're trying to imitate Apple here, which a bad idea, as one of the big selling points of Android tablets is that they're usually more capable and don't have stupid restrictions on storage.

If this had expandable storage and Win 8 tablets didn't exist i'd definitely get the Nexus 10. But i don't see any point in Android now that Win 8 + CloverTrail tablets are almost here that are infinitely more capable than any iOS/Android tablet.Reply

Sure, but it makes literally ZERO sense to copy a "negative" feature. Just because they dont have an expandable storage doesn't mean they were copied from something that came before it (Nexus One came before ipad, by the way, iphone came even before and nokia n91 even before that, but that's a meek point)..

Stock Android release does not support external mass storage for some technical reasons that i don't understand (although it has API support for it) and since Nexus Devices run 100% stock android, they can't have external card slots.Reply

While I understand everyones pause regarding the lack of an mSD slot, check to see how much memory you've used in your current phone/tablet.

I attribute the desire for huge amounts of ram to that of those consumers wanting a car with 12 cylinders and goes 0-60 in 4 seconds. At the end of the day...will you even use a fraction of that power/potential? Most will not.

I have a Xoom 32GB with the mSD slot and haven't used it yet, so I find I can live without it. You may find that also. Now with my Droid2, I do have a 16GB card and still have 12.67GB of space available.

Since there are so many options available in todays marketplace (Android) consumers have the FREEDOM to choose which features are most important for them. LTE? I don't need it. At least you have options. With Apple, thats not the case at all.

Best wishes

BTW. I chose to have my own cloud and I'm able to stream music/video from my own home server (Using SubSonic). The key is to strive to be a savvy consumer and don't overspend for what you truly will use/need.

Best wishes and for those Fanbois....grow up and understand others can make up their own minds on how they spend their cash. Reply

On the car analogy, I have a v8 that does sub-5 seconds 0-60. I feel like testing that a lot. Woodward Ave is my friend :)If I had a 4sec V12, I would have used all its power everyday on the way to work.p.s. I agree with your point. Just don't underestimate the petrolhead.Reply

Imitation is a pretty bold claim, I'll add to the chorus. The Nexus program isn't about offering the users all the checkboxes they want. The program is about providing an Android experience that is unsullied by any other factors. To that end, they provide a certain amount of storage and leave you with that. microSD isn't panacea, and while its bulk size makes it handy in a pinch, there are inconsistencies in speed and quality that can limit its appeal. If you're so media driven that you need to carry around 16/32/64GB of microSD cards to suit your needs, then the Nexus program isn't going to be for you.Reply

For example to store maps (which google is not doing in any functional way), caching locally information so you have it accessible even w/o a network.

Not all people are city slickers, where networks are available plenty. Some live in the country or enjoy the outdoors and a device that can function (navigate, store knowledge (reading, study materials, etc), storing extensive notes (think of research material to write a story or an article, etc.), buffer news, etc.) is really desirable.Reply

If that is true, I don't understand why. Especially Google with an online distribution only should have no problem to stock lots of SKUs. See Amazon makes big business out of the long tail of books, because they don't have to stock it in hundreds or thousands of stores.

And in Europe you have to at least deal with the power connectors from country to country anyway.Reply

I think you're a little lost. The iPhone 5 in all it's versions won't even support half the LTE markets (counted as countries) in the world. We have LTE rolling out in a few weeks and the iPhone 5 doesn't even have a version that works with it (and that's with two bands!).

I'm on the GSM bandwagon until a useful replacement appears. No voice and data? Shitty battery life? No global coverage? No thank you. I can practically go to any country in the world with my gsm phone, buy a prepaid sim-card and have everything I need on my phone just like at home. My current Atrix served me in SE. Asia, Japan, Oceania, Spain and France, and most of S. America. About the only place that had LTE was Australia when I visited, and I couldn't care less about not having 50mbps. 10mbps is enough for me on the phone.

I can get the sd-slot gripes, but not the LTE ones (At least not for now anyway). Besides, the usual speeds for most countries home broadband services are within HSPA+ reach. Maybe a couple of years down the road it might matter. But I don't really care about that now.Reply

I think you may be mistaken. Apple's LTE iPhone has three versions while it's non-LTE iPhone had one single world-wide version. Samsung's GS3 has more than one version just to cover US LTE carriers. HTC had to make a different One X to make it onto AT&T's LTE.

Those three manufacturers had to make multiple versions of their halo phones because it's impossible to make a fully carrier-unlocked phone with global LTE support at this time. Reply

You don't seem to understand that Apple dictates to Verizon when their iOS releases are launched. No other phone manufacturer gets that right. Verizon has routinely scrapped or delayed Android OS updates because it found some thing in the release that it's QA flagged as not acceptable. The only reason Verizon can even do that is because CDMA is built around carrier control.

The Nexus is a development phone so Verizon dictating to Google what, when, and where it can do OS upgrades defeats the purpose of development. As Verizon does this a lot t of it's LTE Gnex users have unlocked the bootloader, rooted, and ROM'd it making the phone useless for development. They dropped LTE because they dropped Verizon. Reply

This is seriously the ultimate phone for TMobile US value plan users. Aside from the small onboard storage and the possibly mediocre camera, the rest of the phone specs scream high end. $69.99 for unlimited everything is one heck of a deal for those who are in a well supported Tmobile urban area. What's the point of 20+ megabit LTE speeds when you can burn through your data cap in a few hours?Reply

Even better than t-mobile's 70$ unlimited: StraightTalk's unlimited which uses T-Mobile and AT&Ts network for $45 per month :) pay the extra 150 for the nexus from google instead of 200 on contract with tmobile and save yourself that 25$ per month. 6 months down the road you break even, the other 18 months of the contract you'll be up $450 :)Reply

I don't understand the desire for LTE at all. We live in a world of 1gb or 6gb data caps on the bulk of mobile providers. LTE wireless seeking is so bad on my coworkers Iphone 5s that they have to disable it to get their battery to last through lunch.

I get 8000 kbps on speedtest.net. With a 1gb cap and additional data at 1$ per MB, I would happily give up 50% of my speed for double the monthly download limit.

21mb HSPA or even 5mb is plenty for streaming video and audio on a smart phone.Reply

Yeah, my Verizon GS3 sucks a ton of data every month. I'm still lucky enough to be on their $30/mo unlimited LTE plan. I honestly don't think I would want LTE if I had to limit myself to ~5GB per month.

With my Droid X, I rarely went over two gigs, but this LTE is crazy. I'm constantly streaming Pandora or podcasts (next AT podcast?!). I find myself streaming from Netflix and Youtube too often. They are really a wasteful habits that I've allowed myself to adopt.

I get the feeling that majority of the people that are complaining about the lack of LTE are on CDMA networks. Their 3G bandwidth is limitted at bellow 2Mbps (real world) so the jump to LTE is tangible. GSM's 3G was more in the realm of 3-4Mbps and morphed into 3.5G's 10-13Mbps over time. So the GSM networks provided enough bandwidth to bottleneck at the individual device's hardware. LTE, save for latencies, did not bring much real world benefit to the GSM users. With the advancement of the hardware of the mobile devices, LTE will become more relevent. But for now 15Mbps will be sufficient. Verizon/Sprint users shouldn't be upset about LTE. The phone is not even meant for your networks. This should be your first complain.Reply

I would not say that AirPlay is "ubiquitous". It is only so if you happen to have iOS devices, combined with a very limited number of accessories. Apple does not license the video portion of AirPlay, so your only official option is Apple TV. Software out there for doing mirroring exists due to reverse engineering of the protocol. Miracast absolutely has the potential of becoming ubiquitous, making AirPlay nothing more than a curious footnote in the history of tech, like 3dfx's Glide.

The "Mapgate" of iOS 6 is only going to become a bigger thorn in Apple's side. The ability to take these photo spheres and have them in Google Maps is huge.

With every new Android version, Google is eliminating the advantages of iOS, all while Apple fails to do the same.Reply

I think you are overstating the issues. Airplay has been out for a while now and is actually fairly ubiquitous on devices in the sense that there are about 30 different wireless speakers I could choose from that support it, and most mid-range and up audio receivers support it. The Apple TV is so cheap that it is nearly an impulse purchase (as is the Airport Express if you just need to literally plug it into some speakers) so I'd say the cost of entry has come down massively and the bugs in the system worked out over the last couple of yearts its been on sale to form a reliable, mature offering which is pretty plug and play. I ensure that Airplay is available on all my new audio devices I buy for the home and have done since the spec came out. Compared to this Bluetooth streaming is hit and miss and generally sounds crappy-compressed and this Miracast is quite late to the party.

I agree that the Photo spheres are a nice idea, but can't really see it being that useful in maps unless Google stitches them all together to map interiors or something like that. Although I also have access to a Galaxy 3 for maps, I think the Mapgate isue will be solved once Google releases Maps or iOS in due course. Agree that Apple does now need to innovate to stay ahead as previous advantages like smoothness of OS and usability are starting to be matched (though not by Android, at least not on my Galaxy 3!) Firing Scott Forstall and giving Jonny Ive the GUI role is a good start. Hopefully there will be fewer apps sporting fake stitched leather... Reply

Good pricing, and clever positioning of this device. The consumer can now choose to sell his soul to the Big G for a couple hundred bucks, while the carriers and the OEMs can continue to milk the mass market. What a wonderful World!Reply

I'd like someone to correct if I don't remember how all the CAS latency style stuff works, but isn't the memory configuration of the Nexus 10 a little better?I know they have the same peak bandwidth, but assuming you need less than the full bandwidth at a given time, won't being able to get a block in 1/800millionth of a second be a little better than in 1/400millionth? I'd assume in any kind of real world application, the difference would probably be negligible. Reply

Yeah where the real pay-off comes is in the ability to do multiple memory intensive things at once. For instance, mirroring to an external 1080p display while also generating full resolution content. The difference between latencies can play a huge role, but I believe a lot of that is hidden by the latency of the actual memory interface, which is why it's a pretty big deal that SoCs are bulking up in that space. Reply

Does it have OTG support? Could be helpful. But I know Nexus firmware usually don't want to support it, or exFAT, NTFS etc. Asus, LG and Samsung usually supports it though. Stickmount requires root which shouldn't be too difficult on Nexus roms but. Plus lots of software now days don't like rooted devices.Reply

There's actually an app that enables USB drive mounting on the Nexus 7 without root... Though I'm not sure if it allows you to write to the drive so it's possibly a bit of a hack, haven't looked into it, certainly allows you to import media from drives tho (or even play it from them).Reply

Do you think some more extensive and real world default browser testing would be possible with the Surface, the iPad, and this? I think that would be pretty cool. I'm more curious about the multi tab performance than synthetics. Clearly they optimize around benchmarks, I'd rather see page load times, how they render background tabs, how many tabs it takes to make them stutter, etc. Reply